CyberCash pulls ahead of expectations

CyberCash, which process electronic payments for retailers both on
and off the Internet, today reported a fourth quarter net loss of 46 cents per
share on revenue of $4.4 million.

The per-share loss was 2 cents smaller than Wall Street anticipated, according
to First Call. Revenue grew 120 percent from $2 million in the year-ago
quarter.

CEO Bill Melton said in a statement that he had expected revenue to slow in the
fourth quarter, as merchants focused their attention on holiday sales efforts.

But the strong showing of Internet merchants during the Christmas shopping
season, Melton said, "increases our confidence that electronic commerce is no
longer a dream."

The company's fiscal 1998 financial results loss of $2.15 per share on $12.6
million revenue were also better than expected. First Call's consensus estimate
was a loss of $2.20 per share. Revenue from set-up fees and monthly service
fees jumped 200 percent from the previous year and is now
about 25 percent of total revenue, the company reported.

CyberCash's software acts as a link between merchants sending payments
electronically, including Internet transactions, and credit card companies.
Last April, CyberCash merged with ICVerify, which provides electronic payment
systems to retailers, in an effort to capture fees in the traditional retail
market and create a bridge for those retailers to move online.

In 1998, CyberCash also boosted the number of Internet merchants using its
payment system, ending the year with more than 9,400, a 275 increase over 1997.
InstaBuy, an electronic wallet service for Web stores, accounted for almost 10
percent of revenue.

Separately, CyberCash today released a
new component of its online payment software to work with Microsoft's e-commerce software, Microsoft
Site Server, Commerce Edition. CyberCash's new component is designed to make it
easier for developers to integrate transactions into legacy systems.